Top-level meeting shows China – and Xi – still a priority for Biden

Jake Sullivan, the US’s national security adviser, has made his second trip to China. As the two nations work to stabilize their relationship, he did speak with Wang Yi, the foreign secretary.

Mr Sullivan and Mr Wang have met four days over 16 times in Vienna, Malta, Washington and Bangkok. Their most recent meeting in January came soon after Presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden held a conference to rekindle diplomatic tensions.

The B Wednesday, even as the retiring chairman enters his last months in den a d office.

Is another mountain on the tickets?

The White House makes an effort to avoid making an unflinching connection between Mr. Sullivan’s journey and the US national election. But it’s hard to ignore the schedule.

If Mr Sullivan is able to lay the groundwork for a last Biden-Xi summit, his journey may tie up the ends of the US president’s most crucial- and fraught- international policy relationship.

Diplomats from the US and China often acknowledge that discussions between Beijing and Washington are not straightforward. And there are many topics to discuss.

China is closely watching what the upcoming administration might hold with the sudden change the US vote has taken, with Biden bowing out in favor of Kamala Harris.

Donald Trump has made it clear he will raise tariffs further on Chinese goods, potentially deepening the trade war he kicked off in 2019.

While Mr Biden’s administration saw merit in diplomacy, he didn’t reverse Trump-era tariffs and has added more – in May he announced steep duties on Chinese-made electric cars, solar panels, and steel.

Mr Biden has also strengthened alliances across Asia to combat China’s rising influence and beefed up Washington’s military presence – which, in turn, has rattled Beijing.

The Harris plan has not yet provided some details about how she intends to handle the relationship with China.

And the White House has made clear that Mr Sullivan’s browse is meant to continue the work of the Biden administration, more than set the tone for the next president.

However, China is likely to be looking back regardless.

Beijing will use this opportunity to clarify its own objectives with Mr. Sullivan. It may hope that all American political parties are paying attention because the country’s two biggest economies are at a” critical moment” right now, according to China’s ministry of foreign affairs.

For China, the dark range is and always will be Taiwan. It asserts that Taiwan is a self-governing area and has stated on numerous occasions that it will not accept any indications that Washington is urging Taiwan’s freedom.

High-profile diplomatic visits, such as a controversial one by then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2022, or recognition of Taiwan’s elections or its elected leaders, fall into that category.

Beijing will concentrate on expressing grave issues, stating its place, and making major demands on issues like the” Taiwan question,” according to Chinese state media.

China will also have some encouraging words for Mr. Sullivan regarding business. Beijing has called US tariffs on Chinese goods “unreasonable” and urged Washington to” prevent politicising and securitizing economic and trade problems” and “take more methods to help people-to-people exchanges between the two places.”

After what he saw as the chaos and uncertainty of the Trump White House, Mr. Biden wanted to put ties with China on an even keel when he came to power.

His administration has a responsibility to “responsibly handle” rivalry with Beijing, demonstrating American dominance and contest with China through tact rather than bravado.

Despite the turmoil of events, that approach has been changed.

Last year, crisis engulfed the direct relationship when an American fighter jet shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon over US territory.

The tone has been further heightened by the Middle Eastern and Ukrainian wars.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Washington to act if China continued to supply Russia with microchips and machine parts to create weapons for its conflict in Ukraine when he made a warning to Beijing in April.

He claimed that his Chinese counterparts “helped to fuel the greatest threat” to European security since the Cold War.

Chinese companies were subject to a number of sanctions for their alleged support of the Russian military, as a result of his warning.

China is trying to get away with this difficult issue, but Washington is persistent, and Mr. Sullivan is likely to bring it up again.

China’s growing assertiveness in Asia has also heightened the US’s concern about the effects of those ties, particularly with Iran, which has ties to Moscow and also controls Israel’s allies.

Finally, in America, there is the devastating domestic impact of Chinese-manufactured “pre-cursor” chemicals to make synthetic opioids like fentanyl, overdoses of which are killing more Americans than ever and the crisis has laid waste to entire towns.

This was intended to advance these issues at last year’s summit between Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi in San Francisco.

Washington and Beijing have acknowledged their differences since then, despite the tariffs and the harsh rhetoric, and reports of the two sides striking a deal on curtailing fentanyl production are encouraging.

The public components of some of the US Secretary of State’s meetings with senior Chinese officials sounded like a steely stand-off in April when the BBC traveled with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Shanghai and Beijing.

It was a diplomatic strength demonstration made for each side’s domestic audience. And this will undoubtedly be a part of Mr Sullivan’s trip too, as he tries to bolster Mr Biden’s diplomacy in the waning months of his presidency.

But these meetings serve another fundamental purpose- face-to-face time between two rival, inter-dependent economies as they battle mutual distrust and try to probe each other’s real intentions.

Jake Sullivan’s previous interactions with Wang Yi appear to have quietly laid the groundwork for what both parties refer to as” stable relations.”

Mr. Sullivan claimed in a recent speech at the Council of Foreign Relations that they had “increasingly gotten to the point where the talking points were actually being scuttled and having strategic conversations.”

He characterized those conversations as being “direct,” with the exception of one about the Ukraine war.

Both of us felt that there was a lot of work to be done, but that we did n’t share the same opinion or viewpoint on everything.